Ashwinearl
' GOAL:' Fun, Reliable Daily, smooth, quick daily for Central New York My Story This is a chronicle of my 2005 Legacy GT Wagon 5MT. For many years, the 2005 LGT Wagon 5MT was my dream car. I have owned a 1998 Legacy Brighton Wagon 5MT from new and know the utility of a wagon. I still cannot believe all the stuff I've been able to put in there. The LGT Wagon combined my love of wagons with a desire to own a performance car. Had I known then what I know now about the fickleness of 2005 model year, I may have chosen to walk away but for now I am a proud owner. I call owning a vehicle like this, "Deliberate ownership". You have to want to own it, and want to relish in all their quirkiness. I have been very lucky to only experience minor issues and (knock on wood) avoided a lot of the typical hardships. We are all lucky to have such a great LGT community where almost any problem or situation has been discussed in the highest level of detail. It is so much more mature and intelligent than other Subaru forums. Even then, I have questioned owning this vehicle and almost cashed out on its rarity several times. Had there been another option in a true wagon with a 5 speed and turbo I might have gone that route. I've often felt I didn't have the time, money, or DIY capability to truly get this car to where I wanted it. It is stressful anticipating some doom and gloom on the horizon with this car too. Right now, I feel more confident that the bulk of reliability issues have been addressed. There is still the anxiousness of wondering if I have checked the oil or cleaned the MAF sensor. 2005 Legacy GT regal Blue Pearl 5MT -Black Leather Interior/ Limited Trim -one of 86 ever made: http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/official-my2005-production-numbers-model-color-83304.html -Purchased at 70927 miles in Maryland. This vehicle was owned in Virginia and moved up to Central New York in February 2014 The vehicle was very clean in and out. It had car fax records showing dealer maintenance at recommended intervals. However, I had no knowledge of banjo bolt status, turbo issues, or whether they checked the oil regularly. All in all I got really lucky. Off the bat, there were some issues including coolant leaks, coolant hoses, steering pump gremlins (still not totally fixed), brake flush, new plugs, frozen toe in bolts, one bad injector. Thankfully, I lived neat Mach V in Virginia to do this initial work. From day 1 of purchase, I have had a vision of a subtle, quick, tight, but balanced daily driver. One of the things I love about LGT is the whole process of mining the forums to see what others have done and developing a build wish list. After living with the vehicle and learning about the pitfalls of LGT ownership, reliability mods has also been a driving force. I started with the Cobb standard stage 1 tune and moved to an off the shelf stage 1 from Tuning Alliance. This helped clear up basic drivability issues. Over time, some things I have done my self and with much help from others in the LGT Community. More so to reconnect myself with the car and not get so down on it debating selling it and saving for a 2015 WRX. Doing the brakes and detailing it helped me rebuild some love for the car. I finally put together the money and time to get most of what I have wanted accomplished. I opted for AZP Installs to do the work. While I like the pride of DIY, I also know that I am not good at it, nor have the dexterity or hand/arm strength to deal with the tight spaces and rusted bolts. The Konis and stock springs combined with sway bars feels good for me. Just enough stiffness to corner well and not get blown around in the wind, and just cush enough to make Central New York roads bearable. The UP and DP and stock Cobb tune have a nice increase in power. There are some issues in 2nd and 4th that I am hoping will be resolve with an Etune Drivability needs improvement with a better tune to really unlock the JMP turbo. To quite JmP6889928: " Buy one of these and expect to love it and hate it all at once. Learn to work on it, save your money, but in the long run, it will give you more smiles than anything else you could ever find in the price range. The AWD rulz, and the handling is better than any other sedan it's size stock for stock, and the engine produces more horsepower for it's size in it's stock configuration than anything else in the category. " From http://legacygt.com/forums/showthrea...-236420p2.html Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/Legvs#0